The DIA is partially funded by a millage voters in Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties approved last summer. / Romain Blanquart/DFP

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

In a photo provided by the Detroit Zoo, one of three new North American river otters dives in the pool on Thursday, June 7, 2012 at the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, Mich. The pups were born March 20 to 9-year-old mother Whisker and 6-year-old father Lucius. The births of the two males and a female double the zoo's river otter population. (AP Photo/Detroit Zoo, Mark M. Gaskill) / AP

At the Arctic Ring of Life at the Detroit Zoo visitors watch in the cool environment of the underwater Polar Bear display as one of them play with and eat a large block of ice filled with various kinds of fruit. With temperatures soaring into a 'feels like' it's in the 100's people and animals all around Metro Detroit find ways to beat the heat even at the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak on Wednesday July 20, 2011. ERIC SEALS/Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

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The Detroit Zoo and Detroit Institute of Arts lost a court fight over funding last week, but could win it back this week with the help of Gov. Rick Snyder.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Daniel Ryan ruled Wednesday that local communities were following the law when they diverted a portion of the zoo’s tax for things such as streetlights, decorative pavers and other improvements in their downtown districts. The ruling also covers the DIA’s millage, which voters in Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties approved last August.

A package of bills the Legislature sent to Snyder last week would prevent the communities from tapping part of the zoo and the art taxes going forward. Snyder is likely to sign them after a thorough review, spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said.

“I think this whole exercise brought to light that the voters intended for that money to go to the zoo and the art institute, and some of it wasn’t going there,” said Deputy Wayne County Treasurer David Szymanski, whose office was thrust in the middle of the debate when the communities and the zoo both claimed the money.

The Free Press first reported in January that communities such as Grosse Pointe, Dearborn, Taylor and Van Buren Township have diverted a fraction of zoo-tax revenues into their downtown development, brownfield and other special districts. Other communities balked at the diversion.

Between 2008 and 2011, the communities received about $742,558 in zoo-tax revenue, according to Ryan’s ruling. The zoo won’t recoup that money because the communities “were legislatively authorized and did not wrongfully capture the millages levied by the zoo and art authorities.”

Representatives from the zoo and the DIA could not be reached for comment.

The case landed in front of Ryan after critics accused the communities of violating voters’ intent, and the cities sought a ruling to validate what they had done.

The special districts spend the money to pay for improvements within their boundaries, but the practice has become controversial. The City of Pontiac struggled for years to pay for basic services such as police, fire and EMS because so much of the city’s tax levy was being diverted into those districts. Emergency manager Louis Schimmel eliminated several of them by paying off their bonds with other funds.

“Now, I’ve got $6 million more each year in the general fund to pay for things like police and fire,” Schimmel said.